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AMD 16-Core ThreadRipper Enthusiast CPUs to Reportedly Utilize 4094 Pin Socket

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31–40 of 97 posts

Re: AMD 16-Core ThreadRipper Enthusiast CPUs to Reportedly Utilize 4094 Pin Socket

#33
post #21
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The i9 isn't new. Its a rebranded Skylake-X/KabyLake-X chip. This has been on their roadmap for over a year [1]; they just changed the name to trick consumers into thinking its something new. The hype between here and reddit about i9 is astounding to me. You've been able to get an i7 in a 10 core variant for a year now [2]. Need 6 cores? Take a time machine back to Q3'11 and pick up an i7 3930k [3]. And if you needed…

Mostly agree, but AMD's TDP estimates are slightly optimistic and in reality Ryzen's power usage is much closer to its Intel counterparts.

Do you have a source for that?

Re: AMD 16-Core ThreadRipper Enthusiast CPUs to Reportedly Utilize 4094 Pin Socket

#34
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top-end Ryzen chips have a TDP of 95W. (Edit: AM4 socket is rated at >140W TDP.) The new sockets are designed for 180W and up, so they will probably run at the same clock frequencies. That means no hit for single-thread performance.

180W!? That thing is a monster.

Of course it's possible that in a given box the new chips will be limited by thermal headroom. For applications like encoding, it's better to have 16x 2.2GHz cores than 8x 3.0GHz cores. But since they have the same architecture, they should be getting the same performance clock-for-clock without a penalty just because they have more cores.

Re: AMD 16-Core ThreadRipper Enthusiast CPUs to Reportedly Utilize 4094 Pin Socket

#35

I break out in cold sweat when I think about routing a 4094 pin socket. How does anyone layout a motherboard for this in a reasonable time frame?

Presumably there must be a lot of computer assistance?

Re: AMD 16-Core ThreadRipper Enthusiast CPUs to Reportedly Utilize 4094 Pin Socket

#36
post #32
post #23

AMD was sooo close to having a perfect 4096 socket. SO CLOSE! But, alas, it was not meant to be.

Missing corner pins means you won't accidentally insert it the wrong way.

What about a socket that is like USB-C, there is no wrong way to insert it.

Though I imagine such a socket would be an insane task to complete and have numerous problems with latency and speed.

Re: AMD 16-Core ThreadRipper Enthusiast CPUs to Reportedly Utilize 4094 Pin Socket

#37
post #33
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly agree, but AMD's TDP estimates are slightly optimistic and in reality Ryzen's power usage is much closer to its Intel counterparts.

Do you have a source for that?

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/AMD-Ryzen-7-1800X-R...

https://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2017/04/06/amd-ryzen-7-170...

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/8072/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-cpu-...

http://hothardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-1700x-1700-...

(bear in mind the 5820K/6800K/6850K are 6C, the 5960X/6900K are 8C, and the 6950X is 10C)

Essentially AMD is rating their TDP under a very light load - like a single thread at full boost clocks. Under an all-core load they are running roughly 30% over TDP. Intel's TDP rating is much more generous - they aren't quite rating at full, nonstop AVX load (eg Prime95) but typical full-load consumption is 15% under their TDPs which leaves some headroom for intermittent AVX usage.

Anecdotal evidence: my 10C20T Haswell-E Xeon pulls ~60% of its rated TDP during a Handbrake x264 encoding run. My 6C12T 5820K Haswell-E gaming chip (overclocked to 4.13 GHz all-core at stock voltages) pulls 75% of its rated TDP during a similar Handbrake x264 run. And supposedly x264 is smart enough to use AVX, so that should be a realistic-but-high figure. My OC'd 5820K pulls 90% of its rated TDP during a Prime95 SmallFFT run.

It's still a huge gain compared to Bulldozer - but not quite as rosy a picture as AMD is trying to paint. They are equal with Haswell-E/Broadwell-E in most respects, not 40% ahead like AMD is rating them.

AMD is playing the same game in the GPU market too. AMD's RX 480/580 are rated for "GPU only" TDP (which they define to exclude memory/etc) but NVIDIA rates the whole card. In practice, AMD is ~30% above their official TDPs while NVIDIA is pretty much spot on.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/RX_580_Nitro_Pl...

(RX 580 is rated at 185W TDP, GTX 1060 is rated at 120W TDP)

Re: AMD 16-Core ThreadRipper Enthusiast CPUs to Reportedly Utilize 4094 Pin Socket

#38
post #36
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missing corner pins means you won't accidentally insert it the wrong way.

What about a socket that is like USB-C, there is no wrong way to insert it. Though I imagine such a socket would be an insane task to complete and have numerous problems with latency and speed.

Waste of pins. You would need to quadruple number of pins or so (with a square shape, it may be worth to just have rectangular to just double). It is possible, fairly sure, but not really practical.

Re: AMD 16-Core ThreadRipper Enthusiast CPUs to Reportedly Utilize 4094 Pin Socket

#39
post #13

I wonder why it needs so many pins? It only has 4 DDR channels, which is going to be a bottleneck keeping those cores fed. 8 channels would be more appropriate for 16 cores and it would explain why so many pins.

The Naples chips also have 4094 pins and do have 8 channels as well as support for 2+ CPUs per board. Maybe these Threadripper chips are Naples chips where memory controllers or interprocessor communication controllers failed QA?

Re: AMD 16-Core ThreadRipper Enthusiast CPUs to Reportedly Utilize 4094 Pin Socket

#40
post #36
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missing corner pins means you won't accidentally insert it the wrong way.

What about a socket that is like USB-C, there is no wrong way to insert it. Though I imagine such a socket would be an insane task to complete and have numerous problems with latency and speed.

Engineering a socket like that has to be a low priority. It's not as though people are reseating their CPUs every day, and generally speaking, the people that do it can handle aligning it properly.
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